To accept a huge loss on my house

[CurlyHairMare1]

I live in a semi detached house in a quiet cul de sac. I’ve spent a lot of money doing it up and making it lovely. Early this year my neighbours (the ones I’m attached to) sold their house incredibly cheaply as it needed an awful lot of work doing to it.

A man bought it to do up and rent out, I understood he had a property business so assumed he’d be the landlord.

Fast forward to now and he’s actually turned it in to an HMO. He has a number of them across the city.

I put my house on the market in Spring and I just can not sell it due to the HMO. I’ve had a number of offers accepted and they have all pulled out when they have found out what I’m attached to so I’m now declaring it up front.

Would I be unreasonable to sell my house for way under asking price just so I can get rid of it? The estate agent has suggested it would need to go for nearly 100k less to even get any kind of interest.

I’m exhausted with the whole situation.

A shared house 30 years ago would have a different demographic to the HMO of today.

You're welcome.

He'd want it cheap not market value

Is it possible to challenge the council on this? As this is vile someone losing hundreds of thousands of hard earned money.

I'm so sorry OP, this sounds terribly unfair.

Sadly, as its outside your control, yes I understand you wanting to just get out.

If its any consolation I was swindled out of a redundancy payment of £190k. I walked away because life is too short to let money drive you insane.

I try not to get resentful by telling myself the money was never mine.

This won't be it. She said all men, standing smoking outside, filthy. Inference. Critical thinking. We are living 1984 thanks to sheep like this.

I said this months ago. Some people will be begging for the hotels soon.

The clues in the title🙄

My grandparents live next door to one. It's a tiny terraced house that somehow houses 4 people. It's noisy, always people coming and going, smells of cannabis, police constantly there, noise all through the night.. it used to be a street full of families, they've been there for decades, and this is the second HMO in the last 12 months that's popped up, with a third currently being created further down. It's ruining the street.

AirBnB would be better.

I blame low interest rates.

There's rules about that everywhere. Also about community consultations within the planning process.

Agree you don’t want to be living next to an HMO. There’s one in my mums road and it stinks of weed, loads of blokes hanging about outside and the rubbish is horrendous.

It doesn’t help you sell op, but if it’s affected the value I believe you can request you house is revalued for council tax to try and get it dropped down a band. I’m aware of a road where several houses took this option and it seemed to galvanise the council who removed the licence or took enforcement action.

But it might be simpler to see if the landlord wants to buy yours as well.

Because of all the clobbering of private landlords by successive governments, the only way to make any money on a new BTL is by doing HMO, the more tenants the better (financially speaking)
Following what some other responders have said, make the council's life hell. Report every infringement however minor and demand a response/follow up.
My brother lived opposite a council run car park which was ungated and every Friday and Saturday night the local boys would use it as a gathering point to show off their cars and do donuts, races etc. He offered to pay for a barrier but the council said they didn't want to have to pay someone to open and close it at the start and end of each day. Eventually he paid a guy to park up in a van and take down number plates and document/film offences (such as illegal exhausts dangerous driving etc). Then every Monday morning he'd write it all up and submit reports to the police and the council.
Eventually it became such a joke that the police leaned on the council to put a barrier on the car park and hey presto the problem went away (to another council car park in the town).
Be a pain in the backside and you may, just may get your way!! Good luck.

If there were any higher offers he couldn`t get that, "market value" is just what someone is willing (and able) to pay for it.

Can you turn yours into a HMO and go and rent somewhere else?

It is just the fact it is one that puts people off buying next door. A well run HMO should not present a problem to anyone. However, there could be a lot of comings and goings.

I wouldn't draw this conclusion. I have a friend who had a string of properties where each one was financed using the profits from the last, taking out a mortgage on each. It's a recognised business model.

I wonder if he has a contract with the council to house illegal immigrants as this is incredibly lucrative and councils are struggling to find enough places to house them all.
this may be why they are hanging around and not allowed to work.
What a nightmare.

Councils don't house illegal immigrants. How would people who don't exist on paper access public funds?

Three up, three down…
Could mean there are bedrooms without windows?

And a risky business model, pray for higher interest rates, he might go bust and a nice family could buy it off him.

This is a genius idea.

Give yourself a time limit then reduce bit by bit? It's a shame when this happens and, although some HMOs can be fine they are off putting for buyers. Xx

I'm going to respond to this from two angles, firstly as a former planning officer I can say that in no authority that I've worked in have we had anything to do with licencing, wouldn't be consulted on a licence, wouldn't be told if one had been granted. Grant of a licence does not invalidate the need for planning permission and vice versa. I would strongly advise submitting a complaint to the planning authority that your neighbour has undertaken work without planning consent, and their enforcement team will look into it.

Secondly as someone who has experience in the current buying/selling market in general, it's a tough time in a lot of areas, have you approached one of the 'we buy any house' type places? While they usually offer under market value, it's usually around 85% of the value rather than the sort of figures you're looking at, so I'd consider contacting a few of them, make up a 'I need to sell quickly as I need to move away for work' type story and see what offers are made.

Which city is this? Can you ask if thr landlord would buy yours too